The FCC repeals its net neutrality rules - The Washington Post

[EricHiggin]

Leadified said:

EricHiggin said:

What is happening behind the scenes is what people don't know and understand. The reason why people like me or my brother or our friends won't take over our farms is because it is literally not worth it. We all work "in the city" and make so much more money than our parents on the farm, it's not funny. We are not super smart or special either btw. The reason for this is that people have been brought up to think that not only is food a given right, but that top quality food is as well. They have also been taught to assume that this food should be dirt cheap. In the end, stores make decent money, processing plants make decent money, and farmers make very little. Now just imagine what the future will hold when there is nobody farming. Vertical city farming is in it's early stages, but being able to feed the world as it is now, let alone 25 years from now? People are going to end up really hungry, or will have to give up all the extra's they have now so they can afford food.

Truthfully, while farmers would prefer much more income, they are ok with having less, so that everyone can benefit, but they expect the same in return. When the internet, a product of the city, becomes not only available, but necessary to compete in today's world, and the city tells the farmers, 'we're not willing to give up some speed and reliability for you to be able to have what we have', it leads to people like me feeling even better about not becoming a farmer. This greed will end up making city people cough up that saved money in food prices eventually, as well as other things. That money will mostly go to the stores and processing btw. If farmers went back to the really old way of doing things, and selling their products from their farm, imagine the chaos that would lead to for city people. As long as everyone is willing to give a little, everyone can greatly benefit as a whole.

The reason we leave the country isn't because the country life sucks, it's because the city is in many ways holding the rural area's hostage. I would think that American's especially, would understand what eventually happens to the kind of people who take hostages. The Corporations themselves are also to blame, it's just not city people, but in a free market they do have to compete and cater to where the money is, and in terms of the internet, it's in the city. Rural people are also to blame as well. We should all get together and do something about it, but that's not normal in the country. When you tell your neighbor you need help, they try to help. When you tell the guy from down the road to beat it, they get lost. Protesting or dealing with the police is not normal in the country.

One way or another the problem will sort itself out over time. The question is, will it be done the easy way or the hard way. I suggest the easy way as the hard way pisses everybody off in the end.

Aye, increasingly the politics in this country is becoming divided less on class but more on the rural and suburban vs. the urban. While people have been living comfortably for the last few decades, that era of prosperity may be coming to a close with our changing demographics and job markets.

The longer people remain complacent the worse it will get to the point where only the hard way remains. People will make excuses forgiving corporations for being greedy or relying on uncertainties like future technologies to save us but very few will make the effort to pave a path for change. People need to speak out for that change to begin.

The last time the farmers around here really needed to fix a market problem, they went about it the correct way for years, and got absolutely nowhere. They then tried to involve the media somewhat, but that was like pulling teeth and it didn't help much with the poor media execution. Eventually it got to the point where the politically right way wasn't going to work, so a last ditch effort, plan Z was put into effect. They all got together and picked a busy weekend, and drove their tractors down the highway side by side, as fast as they could, which isn't fast at all, blocking rush hour traffic for the entire Greater Toronto Area, which is like 6 million people.

That got the attention they wanted, and eventually led to a proper deal fixing the problem, but also led to quite a bit of hatred from the cities. The media even started bashing food prices constantly making the farmers look bad. Thing is, the problem had to do with tobacco, and the media and people were bashing and hurting the fruit and vegetable farmers mostly. Which isn't surprising because instead of those people realizing there was obviously a major problem, getting informed, and understanding why it happened, most only knew that they had been held up and were pissed off, end of story. While the city people weren't the direct cause of the problem, they were part of it indirectly, especially their media influence.

Either way, there were certainly many tensions for quite a long time between the urban and rural people, and it has overall led to things continuing to get worse for the farmers. Due to the backlash, the farmers don't dare try and cross that line again, which is a problem in itself, because when there are new major problems, which there have been, getting publicity, backing, and change, has been a lost cause. Hence why the country kids are simply just leaving. Being inconvenienced for a couple of days is going to seem like a day at Disney compared to the years of price gouging that may end up occurring eventually.